What is Visio?

Visio 2010 is a graphical and drawing application that helps you to visualize, explore, and communicate complex information. With Visio, you can transform complicated text and tables that are hard to understand into Visio diagrams that communicate information at a glance.

Visio provides modern shapes and templates for a diverse set of diagramming needs, including IT management, process modeling, building and architecture, UI design, human-resource management, project management, and more.

Data-connected Visio diagrams

Instead of static pictures, you can create data-connected Visio Professional 2010 and Visio Premium 2010 diagrams that display data, are easy to refresh, and dramatically increase your productivity. You can use the wide variety of diagram templates and stencils in Visio to understand, act on, and share information about organizational systems, resources, and processes throughout your enterprise.

You can integrate data to shapes from a variety of real-time data sources, including Excel, Access, SQL, SharePoint lists, or any OLEDB or ODBC data source, with just a few clicks in a Data Wizard.

Web drawings with Visio Services

Beyond basic sharing via e-mail or static web pages, the latest innovations in Visio 2010 allow users the ability to see rich, compelling visuals, shapes, and processes via their browser – even if they don’t have Visio. You can publish Visio Professional 2010 and Visio Premium 2010 web drawings using Visio Services, a feature of SharePoint Server 2010 that renders interactive and data-connected diagrams. Your Visio Web drawings can display data from a variety of sources, including Excel, SQL, SharePoint lists, or any OLEDB or ODBC data source.

Warning Access Services is not supported for data linking in Visio Web drawings.

In addition, by connecting your web diagrams to a refreshable source file, viewers can see real-time data within the shapes, giving them an accurate and up-to-date picture.

Find and apply a template

Visio 2010 allows you to apply built-in templates, to apply your own custom templates, and to search from a variety of templates available on Office.com. Office.com provides a wide selection of popular Excel templates, including process diagrams, network diagrams, and floorplans.

To find and apply a template in Visio, do the following:

On the File tab, click New.

Under Choose a Template, do one of the following:

To use one of the built-in templates, under Template Categories, click the category that you want, and then click the template that you want and click Create.

To reuse a template that you’ve recently used, under Recently Used Templates, click the template that you want and then click Create.

To use your own template that you previously created, under Other Ways to Get Started, click New from existing, navigate to the file that you want and click Create New.

To find a template on Office.com, under Other Ways to Get Started, click Office.com templates, select the template that you want, and then click Download to download the template from Office.com to your computer.

Note You can also search for templates on Office.com from within Visio. To search for templates on Office.com, under Other Ways to Get Started, click Office.com templates. In the Search Office.com for templates box, type one or more search terms, and then click the arrow button to search.

Create a new diagram

Note You are in the Backstage view when you first open Visio. If you have just opened Visio, proceed to the next step.

Click New.

Under Choose a Template, below Other Ways to Get Started, click Blank drawing.

Click Create.

When the diagram template opens, most of the space is taken up with a blank diagramming page. Along the side is the Shapes window, which contains several stencils full of shapes.

The stencils are identified by title bars at the top of the Shapes window; you might need to scroll the title bar pane to see them all. When you click a stencil title bar, the shapes appear in the pane below.

Save a diagram

You can save your diagram as a standard Visio file that you can share with other people who have Visio. In addition, there are many different formats that you can save your diagram in directly from the Save As dialog box.

Click the File tab.

Click Save As, and then select a format in the Save as type list.

The different formats are useful for different ways of using or sharing your diagram.

Standard image file including JPG, PNG, and BMP formats.

Web page in HTM format. Image files and other resource files are saved in a subfolder of the location where you save the HTM file.

Add a connector between two shapes

To add a shape to the drawing page so that it is automatically connected when it is added to the page, do the following:

Drag a first shape onto the drawing page.

Hold your pointer over the shape that is already on the page. Notice that small blue arrows appear on the four sides of the shape. These are AutoConnect arrows that you can use to connect shapes.

The Service Request shape with the AutoConnect arrows shown.

Move the pointer to cover one of the arrows.

A mini toolbar that contains four shapes appears, and a preview shape might also appear on the page. As you move the pointer over the shapes in the mini toolbar, previews of the shapes appear. The shapes on the toolbar are the top four shapes from the Quick Shapes area.

Click one of the shapes in the mini toolbar to add it to the page.

To automatically connect two shapes when you drag the second shape onto the page, do the following:

Drag one shape onto the drawing page.

Drag a second shape onto the drawing page and hold it so it covers the first shape, but do not drop it yet. Notice that the AutoConnect arrows appear.

The Analyze shape is placed on the bottom AutoConnect arrow on the Service Request shape.

Move the second shape down over the AutoConnect arrow that points in the direction that you want, and drop it on the arrow.

The Analyze shape is spaced a standard distance from the Service Request shape, and is connected automatically.

To connect two shapes that are already on the page, do the following:

Hold the pointer over one of the shapes that you want to connect.

When the AutoConnect arrows appear, move the pointer over an arrow that is pointing toward the other shape that you want to connect to.

Click and hold the AutoConnect arrow, and then drag a connector from it to the center of the other shape.

When the arrow is over the center of the other shape, a red border appears around the shape. Drop the connector to attach it, or "glue" it, to the shape.

Add text to the page

On the Home tab, in the Tools group, click Pointer Tool to stop using the Text tool.

The text box now has the characteristics of other shapes. You can select it and type to change the text, you can drag it to another part of the page, and you can format the text by using the Font and Paragraph groups on the Home tab. In addition, when you hold the pointer over the text, AutoConnect arrows appear so you can connect the text to other shapes.

Add data to a shape

To enter data into a data property or field that a shape already has, do the following:

Select a shape on the drawing page.

Right-click the shape and click Shape Data.

In the Shape Data window, in the property row that you want, enter the data that you want.

To define a new data property or field for a shape, do the following:

Select a shape on the drawing page.

Right-click the shape and click Define Shape Data.

In the Define Shape Data dialog box, click New

In the Label box, delete the default text and type a name for the property.

In the Type list, select the type of data that you want to be entered into that property.

Tip If you want the property to accept text (like a person’s name) as the type of data, select String.

In the Value box, type the value of the data that you want.

Click OK.

Right-click the shape again, point to Data, and this time click Shape Data.

The Shape Data window opens and displays all the data that has been defined for the shape. If all of the shapes have specific information, you can leave the Shape Data window open and click the shapes you are interested in to see the data that they contain.

Connect data sources to shapes

Adding shape data manually can add a lot of value to your diagram, but if your data is in a database or an Excel workbook, you can pull that data into your diagram automatically and connect the rows of data with specific shapes.

Use the Data Selector wizard to import your data into the External Data window.

The data that appears in the External Data window is a snapshot of your source data at the time of import. You can update the data in your drawing to match the changes in your source data by clicking Refresh All on the Data tab.

On the Data tab, in the External Data group, click Link Data to Shapes.

On the first page of the Data Selector wizard, choose which of the following types of data sources have the data you're using:

Microsoft Office Excel workbook

Microsoft Office Access database

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services list

Microsoft SQL Server database

Other OLEDB or ODBC data source

Complete the remainder of the wizard.

After you click Finish on the last page of the Data Connection wizard, the External Data window appears with your imported data shown in a grid. Drag a row of data onto a shape to add automatically the data to the Shape Data for that shape. Or, in the Shapes window, select a shape that you want to hold the data, and then drag a row of data and drop it on an empty area of the page. The selected shape is added to the page, connected to the data.

Format your diagram

Click the background that you want. A new background page is added to the diagram, which you can see in the page tabs along the bottom of the diagramming area.

To apply a border or title to your drawing, do the following:

On the Design tab, click Borders & Titles.

Click the title that you want.

The title and border are added to the background page (named VBackground-1 by default). To change the title and other text, you must make the changes on the background page; you can't change the title on any other pages.

At the bottom of the diagramming area, click the VBackground-1 tab.

Click the title text. The entire border is selected, but if you start typing it changes the default title text.

Enter the title that you want.

To edit other text in the border, first select the entire border, and then click the text you want to change and start typing.

To apply a unified color scheme and other formatting effects, do the following:

On the Design tab, in the Themes group, hold your pointer over the various themes. A preview of the theme shows up on the page.